The purposes of this forum are to present a guided tour of the 2007 WEDI Health ID Card Implementation Guide, to hear your detailed suggestions and concerns before submitting to the WEDI Board of Directors for their review and approval this fall, and to plan an implementation campaign that is both voluntary and effective.

What is the WEDI Health ID Card Implementation Guide?

The intent of the guide is to standardize and bring uniformity of information, appearance, and technology to the over 100 million cards now issued by health care providers, health plans, government programs, and others. A card serves as an access key to obtain information and initiate transactions. A card may convey patient identifiers to providers. It may convey access to RHIO medical records. It may convey insurance identifiers for multiple benefits involving different administrators on a single card. It may combine bank and health ID cards.

Health ID Card ForumWEDI will conduct a one day Health Identification Card Forum Wednesday, August 22, 2007, at the Hyatt Fair Lakes in Fairfax, VA. This one-day event is in conjunction with the WEDI Health Savings Account Forum, August 23-24, 2007.

Last year WEDI published a draft Health Identification Card Implementation Guide and received 100 pages of comments. The Health ID Card workgroup rewrote the implementation guide to address every comment. It formed an advisory panel of major stakeholders to negotiate the most difficult issues.

The intent of the guide is to enable automated and interoperable identification using standard machine-readable health identification cards. The guide standardizes present practice and brings uniformity of information, appearance, and technology to the over 100 million cards now issued by health care providers, health plans, government programs, and others. The card serves as an access key to obtain information and initiate transactions. It benefits providers, plans, and consumers.

On August 22nd, the WEDI Health ID Card workgroup will present the 2007 draft implementation guide, and it seeks your ideas and comments about this proposed guide for consideration before final approval by the WEDI Board in September 2007. You will receive a copy of the guide.

The Forum will be divided into 2 parts:

Comment of the card. Learn the reasons for choice of technology, appearance, and data content. Learn how one card may serve multiple types of benefits and how the same card can be combined with a bank card. Tell us what you think. WEDI wants to hear your concerns and suggestions before the final guide is approved.

Implementation campaign. Learn how WEDI is introducing this card for voluntary implementation. Hear the experiences of health plans and pharmacy benefit managers. Hear what consumers and providers want. What does implementation entail for providers, plans, vendors, and banks? How can you help? Critique the timeline. Tell us what it can do for your organization.

Health Savings Account ForumFollowing the Health Card ID Forum, WEDI will host the second Health Savings Account Forum, August 23-24, 2007. This forum is designed to promote in-depth discussion and debate related to the business models and education needs surrounding High Deductible Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts. The program will explore issues and concerns from the perspectives of providers, payers, financial institutions, vendors and other interested parties. The Forum will further explore information collected at the WEDI July 2006 Health Savings Account Forum, information discussed at the WEDI Fall Conference in November 2006, and additional information gathered by the WEDI HSA Task Group.

We look forward to your active participation in these two key industry forums. See you in Virginia!